Happy 10-week-versary!

Today marks the precise halfway point of my time in Europe! It's kind of crazy to think of all that has happened in the first half of my trip. I've definitely grown a lot and learned a lot and experienced new things and met interesting people and seen beyond-incredible sights.

When I first got here, I wasn't 100% comfortable. The beginning of anything is always somewhat strange... It's uncomfortable to feel displaced (I definitely had my fair share of culture shock moments). It was also way too cold (I WOULD pick the year that Europe sets record lows). And of course, there was that language thing. It's not that I didn't want to be here or that I was necessarily unhappy, but I am just someone who is so used to habit and routine. It has taken time for me to feel like I am living here and not just someone who is passing through (though, in essence, that is what I'm doing). But I have taken the effort to connect with Montpellier and with French people which has made a world of difference. If  you ever think about studying abroad, MAKE NATIVE FRIENDS. It takes effort, but it has definitely been worth it. I came here to live France, not visit it.

As I get more and more comfortable and make more and more connections, I can tell that it's going to be hard to leave. I know I'm still going to be excited to go home (I can't stop dreaming about Mexican food), and I'd be lying if I said I didn't have Carolina In My Mind, but with every passing day I see a little more of how these twenty weeks are going to shape me for the rest of my life.


Phew. Deep.

Here's another kitty I saw in Saint-Guilhem to lighten the mood!

Also: Proof that I'm always proud to be a Tar Heel! (It spells CAROLINA :)

PS) I've put the links for my bucket list and the French foods that I've eaten in an easy-to-locate place at the bottom of the right-hand side bar. Feel free to check them out on a regular basis (especially the food one which I update nearly every day)!

Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert

Peur du weekend- 9 Mars - 11 Mars: Weekend retreat

I just had one of my favorite experiences in France thus far!

This weekend, I went on a weekend retreat through the Eglise Saint Bernadette where I participate in the youth group that I go to each Thursday night. We went to Saint-Guilhem-le-desert which is an INCREDIBLE town perched in the "high valley" of the Herault region. Our group of 10 (of whom I knew only the priest) stayed in a Carmelite Monastery in this small pilgrimage town. It was the first time in my life I'd ever been on an overnight retreat and I'm so glad I made the decision to go. I was nervous because I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into on a lot of fronts, but, as is often the case, everything turned out even better than I expected.

Here are some highlights:

1) Spending a whole weekend (except for a period of maybe half an hour) speaking in French! Nothing beats being surrounded with native speakers and not even having the option of speaking in English (though it seemed like some of my new friends liked to throw out the English words they knew every once in awhile). It's also really encouraging that I had three different people on three different occasions tell me how impressed they were with my French. I even made witty in-the-moment jokes (hey, it's hard when you do a grammar check on everything you say before you say it). And everyone laughed!

2)  My first car ride in France. Maybe this isn't that exciting... but it was pretty cool to watch the French countryside rolling by with my hand out the window (in the wind)!

3) My first traditional French meal experience. So a lot of the other American students here live with families that like to feed them a lot EVERY night. You've got the entrée and then the salad and then the plat and then the fromage and then the dessert. I've heard stories about where some of my friends have just had to go lay motionless on their bed after dinner because they were served so much food and their host families encouraged them to eat all of it. Luckily I was not rendered immobile by any of my meals, but I did have an oh-my-gosh-when-is-this-meal-going-to-end-?!?! moment (and laughed silently to myself when it happened). It was a good cultural experience eat the French way, even if it was just for a weekend. Here's a rough outline of how nearly every French person eats:

• Breakfast: tartine (bread with butter and confiture), coffee or tea or juice, fruit
• Lunch: Appetizer, main course, cheese course, dessert
• 4pm snack: fruit, yogurt, etc.
• Dinner: ...this one I'm a little confused about because I had always thought French people ate lighter for dinner, but our dinner on Saturday night was just as large as the lunch.

4) My first French "jeu de société" (board game). I am such a board game-a-holic. So when the first night I realized that playing a French board game would be our getting to know you activity I was INSTANTLY hooked. I tried to politely veto anything that was American ( they love Monopoly and Scrabble and all the stuff that we play) and we finally landed on something called Le Village. The premise is that a small village is infested with les loup-garous (werewolves) and you are trying to figure out who is who. It was really super fun (especially because we were playing in the dark with only the light of a crackling, cozy fire). I was even elected mayor one round and successfully found out the werewolves in two swift turns (because my powers of deduction and perception are excellent) with no accidental villager casualties. Bravo is what they said to me.

5) Making animal friends. I don't think I've ever seen so many friendly animals in a town ever.

Exhibit A (this looks like my kitty!):

 Exhibit B (this little guy followed me around for awhile and is perched on my leg in this picture):

 Exhibit C:
Saturday night we went to evening prayer with the Carmelite nuns in the main Church in Saint Guilhem. In the middle of the whole thing I hear this pitiful yowling coming from behind me where the main entrance is. Sure enough, a little orange striped cat wanders over to me. I can't help but pet it which I guess was an instant invitation to jump in my lap. I've never had a cat purring in my lap during church before. It was kind of awesome.

6) Hiking to somewhere that seems inconceivably high.

This is my view from above: (you can see part of the foot trail winding down into the village which is on the left)

This is me, perched in the ruins of an old castle:

 I saved this for last... do you see that tiny castle-looking thing on the very last cliff (roughly the center of the picture)?

Yeah. I climbed there. And there wasn't really a path. And I did it in oxford flats (which was stupid, but I got locked out of the monastery because I was REALLY late coming back from personal prayer time, so I couldn't change my shoes).



I have so many more stories to tell, but I feel that this has reached a sufficient length. The last thing I'll say is that this weekend was so much more than just a weekend of cultural and language growth and getting to see a cool little French village. I grew so much spiritually and was really happy to devote an entire weekend doing nothing but praying and reflecting and reading the Bible and devoting my time to God. I'm so delighted to haven partaken in this and can't wait to put into action everything I have learned!

"Bien"

Okay so remember that pop midterm I thought I was taking last week? Today we got the papers back and all mine said was "Bien."

My face

Overnight adventures

Peur du jour- 6 Mars 2012: Finding a sleeping bag

There are a lot of things that I didn't foresee needing in France:

• Winter jacket (I promise this isn't another post about being cold)
•  My academic worksheet (#facepalm)
• Tissues (because, like toilet seats, this is considered unnecessary in public bathrooms)
• A bigger memory card
• My wonderful snuggie!
• Envelopes (for sending letters and insurance claims-more about this after it is completely resolved)
• Sleeping bag

Some of these things I've gone without. Some of these things have been purchased or sent to me. But for the sleeping bag, I had to do a little digging. After a slew of emails and Facebook messages with my French friends, I finally found one to borrow!

And why, you may ask, might I need un sac de couchage? Well, my friends, I am going on a retreat this weekend to Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert. I'm so excited for a weekend of nothing but French and prayer (and maybe even prayer in French? I've gotten to that level of competency yet) in this beautiful medieval village which used to be a stop on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostella.

 Lots of stories to follow!


PS) I've started keeping track of my French Taste-bud Adventures for those who are interested!

Playing the cool foreigner

Peur du jour - 5 Mars 2012: Giving my time

So yesterday I started volunteering on Monday mornings in addition to Thursday mornings at lycée Jules Guesde. I was a little unsure about it because I had formerly spent my Monday mornings exercising and doing work for class. I also have three hours of class in the afternoon, so my Mondays will feel pretty packed now. I also would be working in three different classrooms with three different teachers which means three potentially different experiences from what I've been having. Basically I was letting a lot of little things cloud my mind about wanting to get more involved.

But in my twenty and half years of living, I've learned the most cherished thing that you can give to any person is your time, so I decided to make the commitment and plunge into an extra three hours on Monday mornings. I'm so glad that I did! I worked with two classes that are very similar to the classes I have been helping on Thursday mornings, but I also got the opportunity to work with the "international" class. These are French students whose course work has an international focus (particularly on anglophone studies).

These students are highly motivated (ie. a breath of fresh air) and are speaking at an elevated level of English. I came in on the day that they were starting to discuss The Crucible (they just finished reading and performing Romeo and Juliet). For the first half of the class they had a mini history lesson about America's Puritan founding. I was definitely having flashbacks to my Junior year English class where we read Jonathan Edwards and William Bradford and Anne Bradstreet and, of course, Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter.

Then, the second half of class, I introduced myself and answered any questions they might have about me/my experiences. It was so so SO weird to be on this side of the equation. I remember the few times that French students came to my high school: our classes would always be so excited to speak to them in French and ask them about French school and culture and life and food and EVERYTHING. The French students mostly asked me about my experience as an American college student. I talked about marching band, greek life, SATs/ACTs, my internship in Washington D.C., living in the dorms, majors/minors... It's always so funny when I run into French people who are enthralled with American culture or the English language. One man's home is another person's exotic fantasy.

Also, everyone could understand my accent. A nice change of pace..

Stinky cheese

Peur du jour- 2 Mars 2012: Roquefort

I'd kind of been sad that I hadn't been having the same cheese adventures as a lot of the other students here seem to be having.  One of my close friends is very into trying new cheeses and has a cheese course at dinner every night, but my family is much more casual than that. However, a couple of nights ago it came up in conversation during dinner that I had never tried Roquefort cheese, so my host mother took it upon herself to get some for me to try.

Note the moissisure (mold)

So I'm not sure if a French person would laugh at me for calling Roquefort a strong cheese. It's a type of blue cheese which is made in Roquefort (about an hour and a half away from Montpellier). Because it's made so close to Montpellier, it seems to be pretty popular. I've even heard talk of visiting the Roquefort caves where you can buy the stinky cheese straight from its stinky den! I was the only one brave enough to try it (Jessie doesn't really like strong cheeses and Daniel said he was going to wait to see my reaction first), but I'm willing to try everything at least once. I'm not sure if I will ever find myself craving this, but it was alright the way my host mother told me to eat it (on bread with lots and lots of butter!).

Mother tongue

Peur du jour- 1 Mars 2012: Teaching Frenchies the Chicago "A"ccent 

I'm assuming you guys can all hear in your mind the way that last word is supposed to sound.

So I have not yet talked about my experience volunteering at lycée Jules Guesde (the s is silent... weird, I know). Every Thursday morning (and soon to be Monday and Thursday mornings), I take the bus over to this lycée professional to help out in the English classes. The teacher I work with is really great and tends to like to give me a lot of responsibility.

Some of the funniest things that have happened are trying to get them to understand my "heavy accent." In France, they learn British English (because England is a lot closer than America), but I've never really thought that the way I spoke was difficult to understand. Of course I have an American accent (and even a little bit of a Chicago accent...), but I always assumed that if I at least spoke slowly and clearly, they would understand.

The first time I introduced myself and talked about where I was from and why I was in France and what I was studying, I had a room full of blank stares. And one girl stood up and said (in English) (very loudly) "I DON'T UNDERSTAND." I was reduced to drawing a crude map of the united states on the board and saying "home" while pointing at Chicago and "school" while pointing in the general direction of UNC. And then all the "oooh"s and "ahhh"s and "that's so far!"s started. Also, I mentioned that UNC has a great basketball team, but I'm pretty sure that some of them misunderstood and think that I play basketball for UNC.

Suffice it to say that I end up speaking a lot of French to them (which is fine by me!). I do help them with the tricky pronunciations, though. One of the business classes I was working with was doing a dialogue where one person worked in a clothing store and the other person was a client. The two boys I was helping were writing a dialogue about a "shirt," and they had to be hastily corrected (please, just think for a minute about what inappropriate word "shirt" can sound like). I'm starting to notice which sounds the French have trouble making, which is very interesting (and helps me understand why my name is so butchered. They call me Karlein. Not my name, but it's okay). I think to them, English must feel like spastic stuttering. I was correcting someone on how to pronounce the word "asked" and realized how many percussive sounds our language has!

My work with the lycéens has been rewarding thus far, but every now and again I realize that I may be influencing the way they pronounce English words for the rest of their lives! And then I get really self conscious about my Midwestern accent...